


Barricade

by unbeldi



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 17:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9559820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unbeldi/pseuds/unbeldi
Summary: The fall of the Silver Millennium, viewed by a kitten in a doorway.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to the following Tumblr prompt: “Diana, SilMil Prince Endymion, Barricade (obvs non-romantic)”

“I can give you a glance,” Pluto said. “You can stand from the threshold and witness it. But you understand why I can’t give you any more than that.”

Diana nodded.

“I know. I understand.”

The guardian of time went still then, her eyes searching every inch of Diana’s face. Emotionless as stone, Pluto was; even so, Diana couldn’t help but sense a pained confusion in the silence that hung between them. She had asked a great deal of Pluto, and she hadn’t given a reason why. It was only natural she should be suspicious.

Still, Diana hated how it felt for her friend to look at her like that. And so she shifted on her feet, looking down on the human form she assumed for the occasion.

“I promise I’m not trying to change time. If Mama and Papa knew what I was doing, I’m sure they’d be angry. If it’s too dangerous for you…”

“It’s not myself I’m concerned for, little one,” Pluto replied, each word dropping with the weight of a stone. “You’ve been a friend to me, and a precious companion to Small Lady. You’ve earned from me this one gift – why squander it on such an ugly thing as this?”

It was several more moments before Diana could think of an answer, and when she found it, her voice wavered, as small and timid as it had been so many years ago.

“I want to know what they went through. I need to. Mama, Papa, everyone…it’s not fair. I shouldn’t be the only one who doesn’t remember.”

Pluto’s jaw tensed, imperceptibly – except that she and Diana were kindred souls, in a sense, both guardians of the Time Door, both guardians of Small Lady, and Diana could see in her what most couldn’t.

“Small Lady doesn’t remember either,” she said. “Would you subject her to this burden as well?”

“No!” Her outburst was immediate, instinctive. “No, of course not. She shouldn’t have to see the King and Queen like that, they’re her parents!”

“Did your parents not live in the Silver Millennium as well?”

Diana balled up her fists, averting her eyes. Pluto always did this to her when they spoke; she was so much smarter than her, she could dismantle any argument with a raised eyebrow and a couple of words. Not this time, though. This time, she would stand her ground, illogical or not.

“If I see m-my parents,” try as she might to keep it steady, her voice cracked at the thought of seeing Luna and Artemis, broken and battered, “I know I can handle it. This is my job, Pluto. I’m doing this so Small Lady never has to.”

“Never has to what?”

“To remember what happens if we fail.”

Maybe if she’d had a few more minutes, she could have come up with something more eloquent than that, a more fitting explanation of why she wanted to peer into their last life’s apocalypse. But she must have pleased Pluto, somehow, because she looked down at her with the faintest spark of satisfaction and placed a gentle hand on her head.

“If I were kind, I’d turn you around and send you back to the palace,” she said. “What you would see through the door defies description, little one. No one living has seen such carnage. Even the Senshi only have secondhand memories of it – all except Venus, and there’s a reason she never breathes a word of it to anyone. Does that frighten you?”

Diana swallowed.

“Do you understand that, through the door, you will see those you’ve loved and cared for, dead or mangled within an inch of their life? And do you understand that there is not a thing I can let you do to help them?”

Diana nodded.

“Are you prepared to take this burden in place of Small Lady?”

“Yes,” she said, with her still small voice. “I have to.”

“Then you must not falter.”

Pluto lifted her hand and turned to face the great white door. With a tinkling of crystal and a flash of light, her Garnet Orb set about its task – the door began to creak open with the weight of countless centuries, and beyond it, through a crack no bigger than her hand’s width, Diana could see plumes of smoke and a crimson sky.

“Do not look away. Do not forget. Remember every wretched second of our Kingdom’s fall; remember every failure, weep for every death, let the cries of the hopeless echo in your heart and let their memory live on in your mind. Remember, for her sake, that we are never safe from devastation like this. Not at our most powerful. Not at our most peaceful. Not for a single moment.”

The door swung inexorably open, wider and wider, until none of its glittering marble held back the desolation behind it. In the distance, Diana could see the silhouette of the old Moon Palace – or what she knew of it, anyway – much of it lay in ruins, its mighty dome cratered and cracked, its pillars alternately collapsed and decimated.

On the palace steps, far from the fighting, two figures laid crumpled and motionless.

Diana held her breath, straightened her back, and though tears and nausea at turns threatened to overwhelm her, she didn’t so much as blink.

_Do not look away. Do not forget._

* * *

This was how his kingdom fell. This was the end of the world he had ushered in with his own hands. And this was how he would greet it, bleeding out beside Serenity’s lifeless body, powerless to stop the blade that pierced her heart. Tortured by the sound of her sobs and the screams of her people, as his beloved friends and subjects slaughtered them all.

It would have been kinder if Beryl’s sword found his heart and not one of his lungs; but maybe this was his fate, to stand by and watch while the world paid the price for his love. Maybe this was the punishment of God Serenity had told him of.

Would he have done anything differently if he’d known?

He didn’t have enough life left in him to answer. Perhaps it was better not knowing at all.

Serenity’s hand in his was going cold, and each breath of his rattled with blood and bile. It wouldn’t be long now; his body felt to him a heavy and unresponsive shell, and the world blurred together, scarlet and grey. The burst of light on the horizon, the distant figures of two women, standing as if on a threshold – either the delusions of his dying mind or the angels to carry him and his love to the world beyond. It didn’t matter now.

If they were saviors, he wasn’t the one who needed saving.

“Ple – please.” The words wheezed out of him, a hair’s breadth from a death rattle. “If you’re…here to help us. My kingdom – my friends – this isn’t their f-fault…”

His words caught on a fresh geyser of blood, and he could do no more than spasm, too weak to even cough now.

A tear fell from Serenity’s unseeing eyes.

“H-help…them… _please_.”

The voice in the distance came small, quivering.

“I can’t.”


End file.
